'What does it mean?' I asked. My voice was shaking.'It's finished,' answered Holmes. 'Let's go and see.'We went into Dr Roylott's room. The metal box wasopen. Roylott was sitting on a chair, and his eyes werefixed on the air-vent. Round his head was a strange,yellow speckled band. He was dead.'The band! The speckled band!' said Holmes veryquietly. The band moved and began to turn its head.'Be careful, Watson! It's a snake, an Indian snake -and its poison can kill very quickly,' Holmes cried.'Roylott died immediately. We must put the snakeback in its box.' Very, very carefully, Holmes took thesnake and threw it into the metal box.The Speckled Band 13'But how did you know about the snake, Holmes?' Iasked.'At first, Watson, I thought that it was the gipsies.But then I understood. I thought that perhaps something came through the air-vent, down the bell-ropeand on to the bed. Then there was the milk - and ofcourse, snakes drink milk. It was easy for the Doctor toget Indian animals. And because he was a doctor, heknew that this snake's poison is difficult to find in adead body. So every night he put the snake through theair-vent, and it went down the bell-rope on to the bed.Of course, nobody must see the snake, so every nighthe whistled to call it back. The sound of metal fallingwas the door of the metal box, which was the snake'shome. Perhaps the snake came through the air-ventmany times before it killed Julia. But in the end it killedher. And Helen, too, nearly died because of this snake.'But tonight, when I hit the snake on the rope, it wasangry and went back through the air-vent. And so itkilled the Doctor. I'm not sorry about that.'Soon after this Helen Stoner married her young manand tried to forget the terrible deaths of her sister andstepfather. But she never really forgot the speckledband.